Barry: The 'roider to be named later?

While I was gone on vacation in late August, word leaked out from Major League Baseball’s office or somewhere that a really big steroid fish had been netted.

Bigger than Raphael Palmeiro, the rumor said.

Well, most baseball fans’ first thoughts turned to ageless wonder Roger Clemens. After all, when the season started, a number of sports pundits said pitchers, not just batters, had likely been juicing up over the past decade. And Clemens would certainly qualify as a bigger fish than Raffy.

But, this last week, after seeing Barry Bonds come back on his homer-a-day chase — fueled in part by whatever animus he has against Babe Ruth, and perhaps hoping to pass him this year, and perhaps fueled in part in other ways — I got to wondering.

Could Barry be the fish?

After all, you still get tested while you’re on the injured list.

So, picture with me this scenario.

In the offseason last winter, Barry has his initial knee surgery. Despite the blather coming from he himself, his sycophants, his camp followers and his groupies, he realizes early on that he needs a second surgery. Then his knee gets infected.

At some point, Barry recognizes that he may well not play this year. And he goes into that mindset with his doctors and trainers.

“Let’s focus on being 100 percent, or more, next year,” he tells everybody.

He keeps pretenses, and perhaps a bit of hope, up for this year, but his focus is on 2006.
When he comes back, 12 homers put him past the Babe 53 past Aaron. (Of course, that still leaves him behind the 800 dingers of Negro League great Josh Gibson, but that’s another story.)
Given his output of the past couple of years, he figures that’s no sweat. Given the quality of his lawyers keeping him out of the Victor Conte/BALCO mess, he figures it’s no sweat on any other grounds, either.

But then comes the certified letter from one Mr. Allen “Bud” Selig, commissioner of Major League Baseball.

“Dear Mr. Bonds: A random test conducted by Major League Baseball has determined the presence of steroids in your test samples, and reconfirmed it after retesting. Pending the beginning of any appeal on your part, you will be suspended from Major League Baseball for 10 days when you return from the injured list. Yours sincerely, yada, yada, yada.”

Most baseball players might well break out in a cold sweat at this point.

Instead, Barry says: “No sweat.”

He knows, by this time, about when Palmeiro tested positive, how long it was before his appeal was denied and his suspension upheld. He figures his lawyers can stretch things for at least that long.

So now he tells himself:

“Barry, if you ramp up your conditioning, and get your doctors or whomever to ramp up and ‘conditioning help’ you need, )like, say human growth hormone) you can be back in your SF uni and bashing balls into McCovey Cove by mid-September. A homer a day, and you pass that fat white guy Babe Ruth this year. You then retire before the appeal gets settled one way or the other. Legally, Bud can never name you — can never put a finger on you.”
And, I’ve got a sure-fire way to test this.

The Giants’ final series of the year is against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Let’s say Barry is sitting on No. 713 when the D-backs come to the Bay. Arizona’s already out of the postseason picture.

So, what’s to stop them from giving Barry an intentional pass every time he comes to the plate? If his head explodes in ’roid rage by about, say, the seventh inning of game two of the three-game set, we’ve got our answer.